


Red

by misfiredmiscreant



Category: Ladies of Interest, Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-22
Updated: 2015-04-22
Packaged: 2018-03-25 05:28:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3798469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misfiredmiscreant/pseuds/misfiredmiscreant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>First prompt for Ladies of Interest! I'm excited to be taking part!</p>
<p> </p>
            </blockquote>





	Red

             The girls around her have money, lots of it. Money from their fathers, from the trust funds and overseas accounts that Gen has studied, but never known. She knows Shaw got her in here, she knows somehow there was money provided- she doesn’t trust Harold, but she has faith in his wealth and the fact that it hasn’t seemed to run out yet.

            They ask her about her father, and she has nothing to tell them. Her grandfather was kind, and he had enough money to give her sweets on the weekend (she thinks about licorice often, the way the flavor stayed on her tongue long after the candy was gone); her father was absent, he had never meant anything to her, and she had learned long ago to not ask questions that you didn’t want to know the answer to. Her mother had asked too many questions, and she had disappeared. When left with Vadim, she stopped asking questions, and found the answers before they even existed.

            Harold’s not her father, neither is Shaw, but that didn’t mean she didn’t learn from them, and it didn’t mean that it didn’t hurt when the other girls mocked her, wondering how she had managed to be admitted to the school. She had held out hope that maybe she’d get a visit on Parent’s Day, that during mail call there’d be a letter for her, but weeks had passed with radio silence, and she was used to not getting her hopes up.

            It started off slowly in school- pencils disappeared, pages torn out of her notebook and left on the ground when she went to the bathroom during her classes. At first, she didn’t even realize it was happening- a naivety that she allowed herself for far too long. She spoke another language, she was good at her studies- why girls would decide to exclude her seemed far from her mind. It took a few weeks, but soon enough, she realized the shoves in the hallway weren’t just for show.

            Gen says that her role model is her grandfather, followed by Shaw, and the girls laugh at her description of the woman, openly mocking her description of Shaw’s resourceful use of duct tape, and the way Gen herself was rescued by the gun-wielder. Her teacher pulls her aside in the hall, tells her not to lie, and admonishes her for glorifying violence among the “pure, young, delicate girls” she was surrounded with.

            They’re not so delicate after class, when they start in on her as they walk across the grounds. She sees them pick up sticks out of the corner of her eye, a rock here or there, and she ties her hair up in preparation. When they attack her, she is ready, striking back clumsily, but sure. She scares them off, but she knows it is the first altercation.

            That night is the first time she takes out the number Shaw left her with, folding it over and over endlessly in her hands. She knows the digits by heart, but the paper has Shaw written all over it, from the scrawl to the edges it’s torn from. She has traded metal for lead and wood, but this is heavier for her to carry. She places the scrap down, does her homework, and locks it up again before heading to bed, removing the pinecones hidden in her pillow from the other girls before finally turning down. She has some bruises, and she’ll be a little sore, but she doesn’t need to call Shaw for that. She didn’t get shot, didn’t lose a limb. She’s tough enough to get through it.

            It lasts for a few more weeks until one of the girls insults her in Russian, a trick she didn’t know they had up their sleeves. Nasty, dirty words, words Gen hadn’t heard since she was back in the projects with Vadim. Words her grandfather had lectured her away from in her youth. It’s the first time the color flares up at the edge of her vision, the first time she feels the tinge inside. She reacts quickly, too quickly and out of control, and her retort is biting, scathing, a string of curses and words she knows they don’t understand. They retreat for a while afterwards, and Gen nurses the wounds when she lights a candle to pray her grandfather that night. She asks his forgiveness, though she knows she’s earned it already.

            She knows the next attack will be the worst, and she’s preparing herself for it. She takes the time to go for runs- always in the middle of the day, so she’s safer. She sneaks into the gym and jumps rope, pretending more than training, but she tries push-ups and sit-ups until the impression of strength stays with her for longer than the next few hours. At night, she rubs Shaw’s number and locks it away again. It is a routine, a pattern, better than one she had ever run through before.

            When she goes to bed one night, she is shaken away in the middle as a bag slips over her head. Disoriented in the darkness, she struggles, but can’t break free, and her hands and feet are tied together as she hears the rustling and rummaging through the scraps on her desk, shoves and crashing as her dressers and drawers fall to the ground. Her window is slammed open and Gen jumps and the noise. Panicked, she fears for a moment that the Bratva is back, that they’ve found her again. Her voice streams out in Russian, higher-pitched than it’s been before. When she hears laughter in response, feminine and cruel, there’s a moment of relaxation- she can handle this, Gen thinks.

            They take the bag off once they get her by the lake- Gen can feel the temperature change, but it’s not anywhere near the cold she’d felt before when she was young. She spits directly in the closest face to her, earning a slap across her own in return. The red creeps in her vision and she struggles against the ropes. First, they kick her, and beat her, until she’s panting on the ground, before finally untying her. Against her wishes, her body betrays her, as her first instinct is to clutch her stomach, feeling her ribs- nothing seems broken, so she shakily makes it to her feet. Four against one isn’t a fair fight, but Gen jumps into the fray regardless.

            It’s animalistic, basic and pure, and Gen fights dirty, pulling hair and using teeth as she slashes her way through the group of girls around her. This isn’t tracking the mob back in the projects- this is self-survival and she’s coming up with her plan on the spot. She knows one is left-handed- so she dodges her feint and comes in strong on the right side where she’s weaker, throwing her off balance into the girl who’s got a bad knee. They both topple to the ground and she stomps once, twice, into their stomachs and lets them moan as she focuses on the last two. One’s got a bat- and she remembers her from the sticks before, so she goes in low and looks out for the swing, letting it graze off her arm as she grapples her to the ground. When the bat clatters away, she brings back her right hand as she punches the girl twice in the face. Her nose starts bleeding, and Gen wipes her hand in disgust. The last girl looks scared, now that she’s on her own, but there’s not much mercy that you learn growing up where Gen did, and here she knows there’s not much either. The last one rushes her, but Gen simply steps to the side and uses the power of gravity again, throwing off her balance until she too is sprawled on the ground.

            It’s been enough, and Gen tells them that in no uncertain terms. She’s convinced she’s put the matter to rest once and for all, and makes her way back to her room. The place is trashed when she opens the door- a problem she can deal with tomorrow. Exhausted, and covered in scrapes and bruises, she crawls into bed, placing a towel on her pillow, hoping to avoid getting any more blood or dirt on her belongings. Tomorrow, she thinks, she will call Shaw.

            When Gen wakes up, late in the afternoon, it sounds like the world is collapsing. Girls walk the halls with hushed voices occasionally screeching into panic; the teachers’ stern faces seem even harsher than before. It’s not the end, but it might as well be. Gen doesn’t concern herself with their worry, it doesn’t matter to her, seeing as her father’s not around and never made a trust fund or invested anything for her.

            She puts her room back together slowly. Her candle is still there but the votive shattered, and she’s delicate with the glass pieces. She lights it as she continues working, putting away her textbooks and assignments and refolding the clothes all over the place. It’s not until the end that she realizes Shaw’s number is missing. She debates taking her room apart again, resolving first to go through the garbage again, making sure it didn’t get swept up. When that proves fruitless, she goes through her room again, systematically. The locked drawer had been wrenched free, and she checked behind the hinges and the desk. She thought about the girls, but there was no way they could’ve known…right?

The window, which had never been closed, mocked her as the breeze gently blew the curtains back and forth. If it had gone out there, there was no way to know where it was, or how to get it back. Gen cursed herself, searching the view in vain, until finally slamming the window shut, resigning herself to the loss. She would go and look outside, even as the sun was setting, but first she would call.

            It rang nine times before Gen was almost ready to give up. Suddenly, the line went live

            “Shaw?” Her voice came out much more timid than she planned. “It’s been crazy, you’d think with this stock market collapsing that the world is ending.” She hadn’t planned on the tiny gasp that came through from the other side of the conversation.

            “Is this…Genrika?” No. No. The voice was all wrong, too high-pitched, too raw with emotion. Had she dialed the number wrong?

            “Who is this? Where is Shaw? She gave me this number.” Her voice was angry now, the timidity gone. “It’s Gen.” She added as an afterthought, wanting answers.

            “Gen. She mentioned you before. You gave her the medal.”

            “Who are you? Put Shaw on!”

            “I can’t.” Gen could hear the rough swallow from the other women’s voice. “The stock market, today…she came in to save us but we couldn’t get her out.” Her words hung in the air, the weight too much for either to bear.

           

For the first time, Gen finally sees red.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! There's still a bit of muse left for this, so you might see another chapter added sometime in the future. Find me on tumblr at thedawnoftomorrow!


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